Application Essay Excerpts

Since 8th grade, I have been active in my synagogue’s youth group where, for the past two years I have served as an executive board member. In 11th grade, I was the Fundraising Vice President, which put me in charge of raising money for charity and scholarship opportunities for our members...

A young boy, his feet barely skimming the carpet, sits with his legs dangling over the edge of his living room sofa. The boy’s brown eyes are wide with concentration as he tries to comprehend a story that the news broadcasters prefaced with the headline: GENETIC CODE CRACKED. Although the boy does not understand the majority of the broadcast, his ears are acute with curiosity as he strains his 13 year old brain to grasp the advanced concepts of what a professor on the television is now calling the “Secret of Life.”..

When global pressures such as population growth and diminishing natural resources create a new array of international problems, it is the engineer’s job to develop cutting edge solutions. Engineers manipulate what they have until a solution is found...

If I were to model persuasiveness as a mathematical function, it would be: P(x)=K(x)+D(x) where P(x) represents persuasiveness, K(x) represents knowledge and D(x) represents delivery. I feel as if debate has maximized (derivative=0) my ability to be persuasive...

Some questions can never be answered. The past 18 years of my life has been a hidden yet relentless search for my identity. Having never lived in a country continuously for over three years, my mind is clouded by ambiguity whenever I try to attempt to wrap my brain around this pressing issue...

Frankly, it appalls me when I hear the main stream media concentrate on environmental problems, but provide no sort of solution. Through my own research I feel as if the solution is actually a series of solutions combined working together all aimed at reducing some aspect of environmental degradation. I believe that society will not accept drastic changes and therefore each step must be gradual and practical...

As I walked through the side entrance of the school, balancing 3 large boxes, students and teachers could not help commenting on the aroma of what they thought was an “exotic delicacy”. Many curious students, hungry and tired of the “plastic” served in the cafeteria followed me to my stall...

The sun shines brightly on this warm significant summer afternoon. The slight cooling breeze makes it a perfect day for a soccer game. I approach the pitch with my seventeen teammates nervously walking behind me...

Six years ago, at the start of middle school, I had a scheduled dentist appointment on a regular fall afternoon. Normally, going to the dentist is something that I looked forward to. Unfortunately, on this particular visit I did not get the result I was hoping for...

I always wanted to be a good athlete, but as a young teen, I did not have the body or the skills to call myself anything other than overweight and out-of-shape. When the wrestling coach encouraged me to join the team, I saw an opportunity to transform into the athlete I had always wanted to be...